Christmas Eve 2012

celebrating Mark's birthday...

sled and cross-country skiing races on the pond..

singing songs...

the songleaders...

gifts from Kenya...

What Made the Angels so Excited?

this from Standing Strong Through the Storm devotional for December 25:

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:13-14

A depressed Chinese communist local party boss went to an official church to hear the preaching of a very sincere and learned elder he knew. Here is his story in his own words:

It was the first Sunday of December. I remember he talked about “The Angel’s Song.” After the service I spoke to him, “You know, I really can’t see what all the fuss is about Jesus. He was a man of moral ideals, and died for his belief, but lots of other religions have such men, too.” This elder smiled and said, “Are you looking for God?”

“I suppose I am,” I admitted to him. He asked again, “Well, if Jesus doesn’t seem to be up to much, what sort of God would you be looking for?” I answered slowly, thinking it through, “I guess a God who first of all is totally powerful, and then is also totally just or fair.”

The elder probed again, “But how would you know a God like that was interested in you?” I said, “Then he would also have to be a God of love.” The elder challenged me by saying, “If you find a God who is all three: powerful, just, loving, would you trust Him?”

“I might,” I replied “but I would need to find an event that proved he was all three.”

“Take this Bible,” said the elder, handing me what I saw was his own copy of the Bible, “and come back to me if you find an event that shows God is supremely and uniquely all three.”
I started reading the Bible and pretty soon I came across that verse the elder had preached on the morning I attended the church. “Glory to God in the highest.” What was it that made the angels so excited? After all they had witnessed, what was so unique about the birth of Jesus?

I had little time to brood on this because my wife was expecting our first child. All went well with the delivery and I held the little warm bundle, gazing into his peaceful sleeping face. What perfection the baby seemed. As I looked, the more I was amazed by the sheer miracle of birth.

Had I really used the word “miracle” to describe the birth of my son? Then I thought, the miracle of the birth of Jesus had to be more than just a miracle of birth to impress those angels so much. I read on, and the Spirit of God gave light to my eyes. God had become a baby.

I looked for three characteristics of the God I would trust. Power. This had to be a greater act than the creation of the world. In the beginning God was merely bringing a world into being.

Love. God came! If He wasn’t interested, He would not have bothered to come at all. After all, Jesus had a very hard life, not the kind of life that anyone would wish for.

Justice. God loved us so much, He came. He came Himself to redeem sinful man. Here was the meaning and glory of Christianity - all captured in the incarnation.

I wept and wept in my little study. I must have stayed on my knees for hours. When I looked at my watch, and suddenly noticed the date...it was the 25th of December...Christ’s birthday! That Christmas was so real. I saw in the cradle the infinite power, justice and love of God supremely and uniquely illustrated. As long as I live, I will celebrate Christmas every day.

Sam's bet

(after) Sam did win his $20....

(before)

kringla and snow

rolling kringla...

and rolling kringla

and sledding behind the tractor...

mud lake pose

Mud Lake used to have a little water and mud. Currently it just has mud. We didn't know it had mud before yesterday because from the road it looks dry. Now we know. And we got a photo standing in Mud Lake.

one big hog that has made it thus far...

four little little hogs that we hope to keep alive...

obedience

“The constraining power [of the parent] should be present, but passive, so that the child may not feel himself hemmed in without choice. That free-will of man which has for ages exercised faithful souls who would prefer to be compelled into all righteousness and obedience, is after all a pattern for parents. The child who is good because he must be so, loses in power of initiative more than he gains in seemly behaviour. Every time a child feels that he chooses to obey of his own accord, his power of initiative is strengthened.” (from Charlotte Mason Vol. 3, p. 31)

ellie's three year celebration

opening a sled of presents...

Decorating the doll cake...

modeling a new sweatshirt coat and hat...

the doll cake after it was tested...

with two in her doll orphanage collection...one is white and talks while the other is brown and has a smile

trails, bison and hot chocolate

Priya was responsible for making breakfast this morning. She did a fine job.

Some normal people take their children to festivals or amusement places. But these children's mother is paranoid of lots of things: public bathrooms, waiting in large crowds, talking small talk with strangers. So we put on our duds and walked the state park trails. There is currently no snow and the temperature was just above freezing.

We convinced aunt Naomi to go with us. But it was kind of like having a tour guide because this is her place of employment. She poses with the troop on the bench standing on one foot.

The bison herd hung out by the fence so we could observe them for a while.

Then we ate bananas and hot chocolate on the picnic table until the breeze moved us to warmer spots.

snow and hair-do's

Sam's bet with Aunt Becca is still on. The bet is that he can grow his hair out until December. So we experimented with some new styles yesterday. For Sam, combing his hair means a side part combed over just like Grandpa E and Grandpa S. This is his faux-mohawk (sort of) and his three missing bottom teeth.

Ellie, in her hat from Aunt Rachel and Anneka pose in front of the snow and the pumpkin display. If the snow was any heavier today, we would have a raging blizzard. As it is, the snow is just heavy enough to get out hats, boots and mittens. Priya is still present and accounted for, there just isn't a recent picture of her.

two powerful and different quotes

Oh the weight of these words...

• We should not be entertained by the sins for which Christ died. —John MacArthur

• Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong."- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

root of the problem

Although it is commendable that the largest city in South Dakota has only 2 homicides on its record this year. It is also two homicides too many. One happened this week.

As I read the story yesterday, I can pick up clues to why this happened. In fact I wanted to cry for that mom. Not because she was the center of the horrendous murder of her boss. I want to cry for that mom because she settled, she gave in, she couldn't or wouldn't stand up. The fact that she had two restraining orders on the father of her children: one in 2009 and one in 2010. Her children with this man, the 17-month old and the 7-week old, would have been perhaps conceived after that. If she would have never given this man a minute of her time, much less free reign of her life, her body, perhaps, perhaps could this have been prevented.

I will now repeat: I am not an expert on domestic violence; violence against the mother of your children is never acceptable; I understand life is nearly unbearable with a violent domestic partner and it is hard to get away from them. No, I don't know the whole situation.

What I am thinking about starts before this.

I am going out on a limb, but since the two weren't married, I am assuming this wasn't an arranged marriage that just never got around to getting married. Each of them decided sometime, under unknown influences, that this was the person to hang on to. Or shack up with. At least for a while.

I just wonder if she had a good friend or any kind of friend who was helping her check this guy out in the beginning. Were there warning signs she wasn't looking for, but everybody else saw? Perhaps she wasn't listening to that friend's advice against such a relationship. Perhaps her friends, her co-workers, whoever saw the relationship progressing didn't want to meddle. Did she even really know this man who fathered two of her children or did the relationship start out backwards from the beginning?

Oh, if I could speak in a way that made sense or was in a position to say it, this is what I would shout to teenage girls, to adult females who are looking, experimenting: you have been created by specifically by the Creator of the Universe. You are precious. Every part of who you are. You are valuable. Any man who does not respect you should have none of your time or attention. You have more to offer than to be treated as a used piece of toilet paper. You are specifically designed for a unique purpose. (a million or a billion have said it so much better than I)

The old saying, "Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?" comes to the front. There was no investment on that man's part to let his woman know she was valuable or respected. There is a good chance she didn't expect him to.

So there it is. The unpolitically correct version. Domestic violence is not a one-way street, in general. Domestic violence starts with a glance and a compromise or two and some behavior overlooked.

There is a very good reason why the Creator of each human walking or crawling or sitting or laying on this earth set out some operating instructions on how we are to treat each other as humans and as males and females. One will be a man that perhaps few will mourn for in the coming days. One will be the salon manager who sent out a warning, perhaps too many months or years late, that many will mourn for in the coming days.

first day...

On the first day of third and first grade, Priya and Sam pose in what might be argued as an awkward shot.

anneka cate turns five

note the fancy fingernails

blueberry cupcakes with blueberry cream cheese frosting

some birthday gifts

celebrating a week early with Grandma and Grandpa S

celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa E

vanilla bean ice cream that didn't work quite right

photo credit: rebecca sankey (yes, I ruined yet another lens)

cricket and the poke

Upon the advice of dad and uncle Dave, Cricket is now wearing a form of a poke. Some children must wear a strange apparatus to help their mouth and teeth grow right. Some dogs wear a lamp shade to prevent them from biting other dogs or scratching themselves when they should not. Her lambs, pictured above, along with all the other sheep ran from her the first day she wore the poke. But obviously, they have all gotten past that.

Cricket wears this sort of hilly-billish thing because she has a penchant for getting out of fences. As in, we will spend much time fixing a fence and we turn our backs a few minutes. Cricket is usually standing in the middle of the yard smiling or something, looking for green grass or a snack of some sort. It has worked too. 1) She has not starved or strangled herself  and 2) she has not escaped a fence since it was installed around her neck. I don't know if she has tried to starve or strangle herself, but I did watch her try to get out of the fence in usual fashion and it did not work.

pioneer woman

My friend, Dawn has a little girl who just turned 3.

Elsie is a very special child in lots of ways. But there is one thing that puts her in a category with only a select few other three-year-olds: she is a fan of Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond and knows what brown apple betty is.

A while back, she and her little brother, nearly 2, were into watching Max and Ruby and those were getting old. (Perhaps more on her mother's part).

Since Dawn has all but one of Pioneer Woman's cooking show episodes recorded, it seems like a logical transition.

Elsie now watches cooking shows, not the least of which is Pioneer Woman.

Oh, this makes me smile.

courage

I will be the first to admit to being terribly opinionated. I have been accused of seeing life only in black and white. And I am aware that strong opinions in my direction about one of my vices do not go down easy.

But the antithesis of never being corrected or challenged is a world where I make my own rules and answer to no one but my skewed logic.

I want to choke every time I hear the name of the famous assistant coach who spent forty years abusing children. I tend to think prison is much too kind of a place for such an individual.

But even more disturbing is the head coach (and the countless others) who were aware of this depraved behavior and did nothing. I find it challenging to believe that this assistant coach's wife claims she had no idea this was going on.

But if I choose to live according to what I can rationalize, what makes me happy or feels good, I have to concede that I am capable of any filthy, vile and disgusting vice that would strike my fancy.

Consequently, my courage to stand up against others filthy, vile and disgusting vices loses its muscle. After all, if I have the right to make my own rules then who am I to challenge their set of convictions (or lack thereof).

But if I know that I stand before a holy and perfect God who made all the rules already, who doesn't make exceptions and changes based on popular opinion, everything is different. If I view my choices through the lens of truth established before humans existed, then I can be more more bold to "impress my opinions on others" because those ideas didn't come from me.

Oh that I would have the courage to risk my job and what people think of me to save one or many from untold sorrow, heartache or danger.

more fishing...

fireworks...

games...

projects...

and an Amelia Bedelia play...

at the lake

a s'more smile

fish 101 with little Luke

fishing

cousins

swimming

chick

On Wednesday, two chicks hatched. This is the lone survivor.

The hen who hatched this little chick apparently enjoys sitting on eggs. She was at it for a few weeks before we put eggs to hatch under her. She is still sitting on the remaining eggs that didn't hatch.

kindergarten graduate

A really poor picture of Sam, but he did graduate from kindergarten regardless of his mother's photography skills.